


Five Dances

by flammabellum



Category: Naruto
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-02
Updated: 2015-05-02
Packaged: 2018-03-26 18:45:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3860617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flammabellum/pseuds/flammabellum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hashirama Senju remembers the five instances he saw Madara Uchiha dance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Dances

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written and posted in Tumblr for PikaCheeka's second HashiMada fic contest.

The first time he sees Madara dance is some sort of accident. It is another of their clandestine meetings by the Nakano, and as always, Hashirama is running late after having stalled – wounding his way around the great forest here and there, turning, changing directions deliberately so as to mislead his brother Tobirama. Madara had gotten to the river first, and was standing upon a mossy boulder by the middle of the blue rush, face upturned to the golden sun, balanced on one bare foot as if to twirl, his sleeves fluttering.

  
At first it looked like his best friend was imitating a crane or a stork, but Madara is clearly moving to an unseen beat, skips off to his other foot, only to bend slightly down, a very careful and restrained movement, fingers trembling with control, veins and tendon stretching young, taut skin. Hashirama watches mesmerized, for he has not seen many dancers in the Senju settlement; all entertainment they have are puppet shows and the occasional bugaku performance, all very boring and never catch his attention. But there is a wonder here, inside his best friend’s small lithe body, still skinny with the starvation of the previous winter, and the flutter of dark sleeves and fingers sprawling in the air, filtering sunlight, to cast soft dark shadows upon skin.

Madara can dance.

Hashirama does not know what to do with this newfound information; but what he knows is this – he loves the idea, that his friend is not just another child lost in war, but still knows what semblance of peace there is, in these hidden, secret glimpses of his life.

–

The dance that Madara performs best is a dance entailing blade and fire, of terracotta red chest plates and shoulder guards, taut binding against legs and tough fabric worn over hands that wield kama and gunbai with the grace of a master. It the only dance that Hashirama knows he can match; aided with his gigantic summoning scrolls and a wide array of swords, coupled with the surging trees and terraforming abilities of the Mokuton. But this is the most shameful dance; it is the only lesson their ancestors has taught them for all nine hundred years of strife, hunger, rotting corpses in the slush, protruding ribs from unidentifiable bodies alongside blossoming stray flowers.

Hashirama can dance.  
With a battle-cry he urges his kin forward, and he feels the soft coolness of his brother’s hand against the fabric of his clothes, and together they cover more distance than anyone, and he charges with his two-hand sword and goes for his best friend, and as they skip among the dead bodies he is faintly reminded of that boy from long ago, skipping over a mossy rock, sleeves fluttering, sunlight casting golden rays upon his face.

There is no sun here, but only the burning forests, the pollen scattering in the choking fume of smoke and charred flesh, and in this dance Hashirama falls into place with Madara, of blades clashing and kunai blunted, and it crumples Hashirama’s heart inside his chest – that this, this sorry artform is the only thing he knows, a poor homage to the blazing star Madara still holds somewhere inside his gathering darkness.

–

Madara looks strange in white. This is Hashirama’s lone thought as his best friend presents himself before both Uchiha and Senju in this formal blessing ceremony of their settlement, before the great tree that is at the heart of the village, by the foot of the mountain that they both used to climb up as boys. Madara has foregone the blacks, grays, navies and high collar of his clan for a ceremonial white kimono, complete with a towering hat, and it looks alien, that he should be in other clothes other than those of his clan or battle-armor. Hashirama supposes this is a sadness in itself; the children of war are most often only identified in the narrow perspectives of their worlds and their times; people bury other sides to them, these secret, peaceful sides, surprising and unexpected, and when they die they take these to the grave, forever unknown, and this disproves the maxim that all secrets shall be known.

But this secret Hashirama delights in; that his old friend can wear clothes other than armor and wield a ceremonial rattle other than a kama or gunbai, and as Madara twirls – black, red, white – to begin the blessing, this here is the third dance of their lives – a seal, if Hashirama thinks about it – the final seal needed to end the Warring States Era and to welcome the future of endless possibilities, harmony and abundance.

The ring of the rattle clutched in well-worn hands echo in Hashirama’s mind, and he observes every spin, bow, the thump of bare feet and the flick of dark hair against the backdrop of the village, and he feels like this is another discovery, another side of his friend he is lucky to see – that death has not taken, that the wars were never able to suffocate.

Madara can dance.

Even his face mirrors his wont to give perfection into everything he does – razor focus shimmering in those eyes, on those carefully restrained movements of wrist, arm, neck, hip, and leg. The drums sound faint and the samisen too, and the drone of the monks seem to melt away under the netted shadow of the leaves, carried over by the breeze to swirl around Konoha, this Konoha, this dream come true, birthed by a sincere desire to understand one another enough to help the other put down his arms.

Madara gives a flying leap, clothes fluttering, and Hashirama tips his head back, and he follows the strong and soaring height of the great tree that is the heart of the village – up, up, into the golden sun.

–

A dance exists in the quiet contemplation of the avenues of trade and commerce, of the countless petitions that come to Konoha every passing day, from other shinobi clans and hundreds of civilian families seeking succor from the dying embers of the bitter years of war. It is quiet, it comes and goes in the subtlest of ways, most strongly felt in those realizations that still happen everyday – like the fact that Madara can write as fluidly well with his right hand, or the fact that given the chance, he will not eat seafood. How Madara prefers blue ink in those rubberized stamps that he uses to seal documents from the treasury, or in how he prefers to hold his teacup with both hands, waiting until some of the heat of the drink ebbs away before he drinks it.

There is a dance too, in the unexpected jokes that leaves his old friend’s lips, something that stuns Hashirama for the briefest of seconds before his own smile spreads, and his laughter rings along with Madara’s, echoing in the canvas wall of the tent that serves as their joint office as the Hokage Tower is being built.

Hashirama can dance.

He flows into this new tune eagerly, like a fish to water, discovering and re-learning bits and pieces and shards of his friend; of what makes him laugh and smile, of what displeases him and annoys him. It is tentative, weighing, guessing and probing, familiar from the bygone days of war, sizing each other up, trying to predict what the other would do. But here, now, the only prediction is the next unexpected pun, or whether or not Madara would dart forward and steal one of Hashirama’s dumplings when he isn’t looking.

He finds the dance in their shoulders brushing as they walk side by side in companionable silence around their blossoming settlement, and like blades crossing they both catch each other unaware with secret gazes and small smiles, and this – this beautiful dance culminates in an unhurried kiss, falling into place like a worn piece of a puzzle – as if they had always been destined to meet, like this,  _this_ , and nothing else.

–

Sunlight trails a waltz down the pale slope of an exposed shoulder. Hashirama delights in following that dance in its aurum steps, and it is the most beautiful he has seen Madara perform yet; for here, in this, he is not alone, but he has Hashirama with him. This dance is easy to learn, and when Hashirama thinks back upon it – perhaps all of it, everything, was to lead to this – this intimate dance of two souls, of shared breath, twining fingers, taking and giving, fulfillment, release—

This, perhaps, was where they were always meant to collide.

Madara can dance.  
He displays it, in the fire that’s buried in the very firmament of his skin; in his trailing hair, in the aquamarine glow of the crystal of Hashirama’s necklace hanging from his neck, and Hashirama knows nothing can be more timeless and endless than this.

There is the whispered word, and Hashirama joins effortlessly in this dance, and in his thoughts, everything coalesces – this man before him can hurt him and make him bleed, and still, still, Hashirama thinks – there is nobody more beautiful in his eyes – all imperfections and lingering darkness included.

Madara meets his gaze, and Hashirama drowns himself in that endless swirl of black and red, that vivid, vivid, red, telling him about despair, madness, rage, death –  _love_.


End file.
